Braille is a tactile system using raised dots to represent the letters of the alphabet, numerals, punctuation marks, or musical notes for persons with severe visual impairment. Each letter of the alphabet, numeral, punctuation mark, or musical note is formed from raised dots arranged within a cell (a "braille cell") having three rows and two columns. Braille is read by moving the fingers gently over the surface which has been embossed with the braille dots.
There are many available devices to aid persons who know braille in using braille, but few devices to help the blind and those with failing vision to learn braille. This is unfortunate, as braille literacy can expand the world for persons having severe visual impairment.
Typically braille is taught by a teacher working with one student at a time. The teacher may present material written in braille to the student, who then attempts to read it correctly. The teacher is available to provide feedback as to the correctness of the student's reading of the braille. Self-study is difficult for a blind person as immediate feedback is normally not possible. The blind student cannot easily check his or her work.
The prior art of which the inventor is aware includes braille learning aids that use tactile flash cards with embedded magnetic tape read in a manner similar to that used in an audio tape player. For example, in Schloss, U.S. Pat. No. 4,027,405, a tape read head is moved past a length of magnetic tape embedded in a tactile flash card. To hear the letter or word corresponding to the braille embossed on the face of the card spoken the student places the card on the reader. The tape read head then moves past the embedded tape picking up the recording of the material corresponding to the braille. Devices such as that disclosed in Schloss contain moving parts and hence would be susceptible to damage by young students learning on their own.
An apparatus for learning braille capable of being operated independently by a person having little or no vision is highly desirable, particularly for unaided home study. Such an apparatus should be simple to use (for example, requiring minimal or no computer operating or keyboarding skills) and either be inexpensive or use readily available technology such as a personal computer with a sound card. Further, such an apparatus should be flexible enough to allow easy revision of both (1) the particular braille characters, words, or sentences being taught and (2) the voice reading the braille to be changed to either another person's voice or to a sound. For example, the word "bird" might be spoken and the sound of a bird played when a card having the braille for "bird" is read by the system.